It’s springtime for iPhones — and this time China has caught the fever.

Apple reported another blowout quarter of sales and earnings on Monday — fueled by the iPhone that sold a better-than-expected 61.2 million units worldwide in the three months ended March 28.

That’s not far behind the staggering 74.5 million iPhones that were snapped up in the historic December quarter, in which Apple notched an $18 billion profit — the largest ever for a publicly traded company.

Analysts say Apple CEO Tim Cook has managed to keep the iPhone’s momentum going by aggressively courting customers in China, which had a number of key holidays in the period — including the lunar New Year’s celebration, experts said.

“Apple is figuring out that the Chinese consumer is incredibly aspirational, and national holidays create opportunities for gift-giving,” says Brian Buchwald of Bomoda Group, a market research firm focused on China.

“It’s customary for [Chinese shoppers] to buy for themselves,” Buchwald added. “But more importantly, they buy for friends.”

During the first quarter, Chinese consumers picked up the slack where Christmas left off in the US and Europe.

While US and European sales rose just 19 percent and 12 percent, respectively, they surged 71 percent in China, Apple said Monday.

For its fiscal second quarter, Apple posted earnings of $13.7 billion, up 33 percent from a year ago and blowing past analysts’ expectations on a per-share basis. Revenue surged to $58 billion, up 27 percent.

Asked about the Apple Watch on a Monday conference call, Cook said the company was “working hard” to shorten long delivery times that many customers are being forced to endure since the launch earlier this month.

“I am thrilled with Apple Watch,” Cook said. “I don’t want you to read that any other way.”

Some analysts have blamed the iPad’s weakness on saturation — a notion that Cook rebuffed. On the other hand, Cook admitted that the iPad’s thunder is getting stolen by larger iPhones on one side and smaller Macs on the other.

“Has there been cannibalization? Yes,” Cook said, reiterating that he’s upbeat about a new partnership with IBM that markets iPads to businesses as low-cost replacements for cash registers, among other tools.

Apple finished the quarter with $193 billion in cash, up from $178 billion in the December quarter. The company upped its share-buyback program by $50 billion, to $140 billion.